Revolving Doors

  REVOLVING DOORS

  A Gabriella Alexis Sandoval story

  Prequel to Rendezvous

  PERRI

  FORREST

  Copyright © 2013 Perri Forrest

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  To my Village…Without you this book would not have become. I love you infinity.

  To my Guardian Angels…Alcia Kellogg, Frank Forrest Lee, Ricky Lavender & Elijah E. Warren

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, God for blessing me with the gift of storytelling, and the courage to see my stories to the end.

  Jinho Lee, the person for whom I breathe. You are the best part of me. I love you more than life. Thank you, Twan. Your support was appreciated. My Mama…the Mama of all Mamas, Tanya Kellogg, I love you! For reasons that are as long as this novel. You encourage me with each step, and have cheered me on in so many ways. It is so wonderful being your daughter. My sisters, Taninha Ferreira and Delinda Hayden whose support is unwavering. I love you both, unconditionally. Not everyone is blessed to have sisters as loyal as you and I have 2! Cairo “Boonie” Prevost. Aun-EE loves you, baby. Your visits, hugs, and kisses, while I wrote were always a welcomed distraction. Barbara Henry, you already know. You’ve been there from Babygirlz to Rendezvous. You are a genuine girlfriend and those are hard to find. I appreciate you, and everything that you do/have done. Sable Jordan, without that very first deadline, I can’t say that I would have dedicated myself to bringing any of the stories in my head to fruition. You took a chance on me and made me a part of a sister group of talented women – not once, but twice. You will never know what that means to me. It set me into motion. “Thank you.”

  If I have forgotten anyone, please forgive me and know that you are in my heart.

  Rendezvous

  Copyright © 2013 by Perri Forrest

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Without limiting the right under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  About the Author

  I am a California girl who loves reading, writing, and all things racket sports. I have three published works: Summer Heat (Butterflies in Motion), Naughty Gras (Rendezvous), and The Color of Lies: Book I in the Pandora’s Box series. What Lies Beneath the Surface: Book II in the Pandora’s Box series is set for release in August 2013.

  Cover Artist

  Ronnell D. Porter | http://ronnelldporter.wix.com/design

  Cover model:

  Danielle Nicole Kellogg

  Every human has four endowments – self awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom…The power to choose, to respond, to change.

  ~Stephen Covey~

  Love is a force more formidable than any other. It is invisible – it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment, and offer you more joy than any material possession could.

  ~Barbara de Angelis~

  BOOK ONE

  ~*~*~

  HEARTBREAK

  CHAPTER 1

  ~*~*~

  Growing up watching my parents, I was convinced that love was a many splendored thing. They made it look insanely easy, and like it was so much fun, that I became a huge believer. That is until Friday, May 14, 2001, sometime in the early afternoon, with the sun shining high above, when my heart was shattered into a million pieces. It was the kind of devastation that an 18-year old girl should never have to endure.

  Kenny, my boyfriend of almost three years, left school early and came to my house – a frequent weekly occurrence.

  Surprisingly, we were never caught lounging around the house in those mid-afternoon hours. I often wondered what would happen, or how I would explain it, if we had been. But for two and half years, we successfully managed to remain under the radar.

  With a homeschool schedule and my parents at work, the door was left wide open for us to spend a lot of time together and we took full advantage of the opportunity.

  That day like so many others, we made love…and as always it was phenomenal. Kenny wasn’t my first lover, but he was a first…a first love.

  After our lovemaking session, we got cleaned up and prepared lunch: Pastrami sandwiches, Lay’s chips, banana smoothies, then headed into the backyard to eat on the patio.

  Not too long after sitting down I noticed a shift in Kenny’s behavior. He seemed withdrawn and had drifted off to a quiet place. I wanted to think it was because he was reminiscing about the love we had just made but his body language told me different.

  He barely touched his sandwich, and instead of drinking his smoothie, he toyed with the straw floating in his tumbler.

  I watched him steadily for a few minutes waiting to see if his demeanor would change or if he would offer up what was going on. When he didn’t, I became concerned.

  After so much time had passed, and growing tired of keeping up with the suspense, I pressed.

  “Kenny…what’s wrong?”

  As seconds turned to minutes, a million things were scurrying through my mind about what could be transpiring in his head, and specifically, what it had to do with that moment?

  He spent a few more moments of silence, I guessed, trying to find words. When he finally spoke his tone was low. His head wasn’t held too high either.

  “Huh?” he responded. It was that same response we all adopted when trying to buy time. I knew it well, so I wasn’t prepared to repeat myself, convinced that he’d heard me.

  “Babe…” he started. “I…have…uhh…I have something important to tell you.”

  Oh shit.

  It seemed like the longest, most drawn-out statement I’d ever heard. An onslaught of flutters formed in my stomach, prompting me to place my sandwich on the paper plate in front me.

  Any urge I had to digest food was lost, and in its place was an anxiety level growing tenfold. All my attention was drawn to his face, my heart beating out of my chest as he sat across from me, deliberately avoiding my gaze.

  My patience was wearing thin, and my efforts at remaining calm were quickly failing.

  “Kenny? Come on! You’re scaring me! Tell me!” I begged.

  “Ok…” he snapped, seemingly agitated.

  He ran an uncomfortable hand up and down his forearm, then cleared his throat.

  “This morning, Coach had me pulled from 2nd period for a meeting in his office.” He paused yet again, this time taking a deep breath, “…to let me know that I had been accepted on a full football scholarship.”

  “Whew!” escaped my lips before I knew it. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath.

  My eyes widened, in surprise, and relief set in. Although his revelation didn’t warrant all the dramatics of earlier, at least he’d finally gotten what was on his chest, out in the open.

  As I looked at him, however, I didn’t know whether he was happy, or sad, if he considered the news was good or bad. It was hard to gauge because he showed so little in the way of emotion and still seemed to have no interest in giving me direct eye contact.

  Maybe just nerves, I thought. That had to be it! Yeah, he was just nervous, perhaps even in shock. It was big news, who wouldn’t be?

  “Baby!”
I yelled excitedly, and probably a little too loudly, but attempting to bring in joy to soften the mood, “That’s wonderful!”

  I sprang from my seat to rush over to flood him with kisses but was stopped dead in my tracks when he blurted out, “Gabriella, wait…”

  Oh no.

  That was when he finally looked at me, and with slow pause, said the words…“It’s with the University of Florida.”

  There was dead silence. If crickets were present, I sure as hell couldn’t hear them. All I could do was freeze where I stood. I didn’t know what to do or say.

  I was still trying to process whether he said Florida. Florida was 3,000 miles away! There was no way he was serious! I rested in a state of disbelief, and my brain was beginning to do acrobats.

  As far as I knew and what we had always discussed, he was interested in Arizona, Berkeley, or San Jose – all near enough for us to remain as we were, and in close enough proximity for regular visits.

  When the words started to penetrate, in a numbed state I confirmed, “Florida, Kenny?” I felt like everything was happening in slow motion. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  He had returned to nervously fidgeting with his straw, the contents of his untouched smoothie sat swollen at the top of the cup.

  “Drop the fuckin’ straw and talk to me!” was what I wanted yell out.

  I glanced back and forth from the cup to him, trying to be patient, yet growing increasingly aggravated as he took his time laying out the rest of the details.

  “A while back…” he continued, “Coach suggested that I apply to a list of universities. He knew that my plan was to pursue either Arizona, or Berkeley, and maybe San Jose, but he thought it would be better for me to expand my options beyond the west coast, so he submitted highlights to a few of them – Florida answered the call.”

  During his talk, I sat listening intently, waiting for him to lessen the blow with either, “I want you to come with me,” or some words of consolation that included, “We can make this work…even with distance,” and none of that came out of his mouth. Instead he gave me some bullshit about, “Let’s see how things are when I come home for Christmas. If we’re able to pick up where we left off, then it was meant to be...”

  “Wait…” I interrupted. “Wait a minute.”

  I was trying desperately to process what was happening and maintain my composure, but that proved difficult. Hell, I couldn’t even recall the exact moment I ended up standing in front of where he sat, ready to forget I was a girl and seeing if I could knock him the fuck out.

  I was that angry.

  “So then you’re not telling me that you’re thinking about going…but that you are going? Do I have that right?”

  He gestured as though ready to respond, but I cut him off. He had taken long enough to speak; it was my turn.

  “In the same breath, you’re also telling me that we will see come Christmas, which is months from now, if we have what it takes for some long distance shit? Am I still in the scoring zone, Kenny?”

  While my heart was crumbling, the person that I gave two and a half years of my life to was tossing me aside, as though I never mattered. Like I was just some random drive-by that didn’t mean a damn thing!

  “I’m sorry, Gabriella. I really am sorry. But I can’t pass on this opportunity. You know football is my life.”

  “You’re right, Kenny. I do know that football is your life. I’ve been there and cheered you on in that life. For some stupid reason, I thought I was included in there too.”

  “You are inclu---”

  “No. I’m not! Please don’t crook your lips to tell that fuckin’ lie. If I was included, I would have known before now that Florida…or any other school was an option. I found out way late in the game. So I was never included. If I was included, you would have had enough respect to tell me before you fucked me and not after. If I was included, you would have told me long ago that you never had intentions on seeing this thing all the way through and that I was nothing more than a convenient piece of ass!”

  He sat on the bench nonchalant with what I interpreted, as frustration on his face. As though I was the one who was wrong for feeling the way I felt about his unwelcomed surprise.

  “Gabriella, I’m 18 years old. We…are 18 years old! Way too young for something this serious in the first place. And even with that, I’m not closing the door on us. Not all the way. I’m just saying…I go to Florida, when I come home for Christmas break, we see what’s between us. I have to give this a chance. The opportunity is too great to sacrifice.”

  “Sacrifice?” I echoed. “Yo’ ass don’t even use words like that, Kenny!”

  I was going for the jugular as my emotions were seesawing between hurt, and pissed.

  “That’s your parents talking through you right now. ‘Too young!’ Are you kidding me? That’s all them!”

  I’d lost the battle to fight back tears.

  “So…this…is…what it’s come to, Kenny? This is how you do me! How you do us! I don’t even think I know who you are right now!” I charged.

  “Gabriella…please don’t cry,” he pleaded, rising from the bench and taking steps forward to console me.

  I put my hand out to stop him from getting too close.

  “Don’t!”

  With his shoulders hunched and his palms up, “So, what do you want me to do? Forfeit the best offer I’ve gotten and risk not being able to play football at a top university, or maybe not at all? I can’t.”

  I glared at him, tears streaming down my face. If looks could kill, he would have been gasping for air, and in need of CPR.

  Shaking my head side to side, I managed, “Neither can I, Kenny. And just to make things simpler, there is no need to worry about December and where we might stand and all that. I’m…done.”

  My sobs had become so heavy I had to reclaim my seat on the bench to avoid losing my footing. My whole world was crashing around me.

  Not even an hour before we were having sex, playing around and doing fine; suddenly we were at the end. Just that quick. Just that easy. I felt like I was having a bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from.

  After a brief silence, and when I was certain I could balance, I stood and began collecting all the food from the table.

  Once it was all gathered in my hands, I had a few more choice words for him.

  “What you did was not cool, Kenny. As far as I’m concerned we have nothing beyond whatever we had before we came downstairs. Or rather…we have nothing beyond whatever point you started making life plans without informing me that I was no longer part of the scenario. I would expect you to be more honest about your foul ass actions than to come over here, fuck me, and then drop that kind of bomb.”

  I had said all I could say and there were no more words that I felt needed to be spoken. I wanted him out of my space…quick, fast and in a hurry.

  “Why would you think I’d be that dirty to do any of this with malicious intent? That’s not even who I am, Gabriella.”

  “I really don’t give a fuck who you are at this point, Kenny.”

  A lot more yelling, more crying than I thought was possible, and ordering him to get the hell out of my house was the final scene of that fairytale horribly gone wrong.

  I took my blinders off during the tsunami of bullshit pouring from his mouth and realized that the signs were indeed there, and that I had apparently overlooked them: He stopped coming around as much, hadn’t been calling regularly, and the “I have so much homework to get done,” excuses were constant.

  I was in serious denial!

  In a way I felt I had brought all the pain on myself ignoring the truth that was ever present.

  We were over, and I hated him completely.

  CHAPTER 2

  ~*~*~

  Around 6:30 that evening, I heard a soft knock at my bedroom door. I had been curled up in a fetal position feeling numb for much of the day and was too distraught to respond.

  I knew it was
my mom because she was on her third failed attempt at getting me to come out.

  After the fiasco, I sent her a simple two-way message, that read, “Kenny and I broke up, Mama. Will tell you about it later.”

  I didn’t want to send her a message at all, but she would have figured something out with my mood not being the normal, happy-go-lucky, she was used to seeing when she got home.

  The purpose of the message was to let her know that I was okay, and would come to her when I could dialog – without a river of tears.

  Knowing my mama, she was already on her way to assuming that I was angry with her and my dad because they didn’t want me dating seriously in the first place.

  “You’re way too young for a relationship that serious,” they’d tell me on occasion. It was the truth. It just wasn’t a truth I was ready or willing to hear.

  My heart wanted Kenny and I refused to entertain any talk that wasn’t in favor of our union. Of course I had no idea I would end up paying such a high price for that.

  I didn’t blame them for the demise of our relationship. I blamed him.

  Did he ever genuinely care? Had I just been a convenience? A girl he could get sex from whenever he wanted? He played me…for years!

  Just as my parents had expressed their dissatisfaction to me, his parents had also been in his ear. We shared many conversations about it. While I thought he wasn’t listening and it was us against the world, he was obviously hanging on until something better came along.

  Although I confided in my mother about the breakup, I decided against including my dad. Not because I cared about what happened to that asshole Kenny, but because I didn’t want my dad involved – which he would have become if he knew – boy would he.